iMissed iCarly
by LEbenson
Summary: The trio, since the iGoodbye, has went off on their own ways, but a series of events bring them together once again... or will it? (sorry, bad with summaries.) seddieeeee
1. Chapter 1

"Oh my god Spencer, that's great!" Carly exclaimed, laughing at what she saw on her laptop screen as she was video-chatting with Spencer. He was in the middle of eating cereal, stopping to make his goofy, excited face and make her laugh. He then stood up, going into a little dance, all the while stuffing his face with his bowl of cereal.

"I'll see you next weekend, then," she said. "By the way, is that cereal?"

"Yuh-huh?" responded Spencer, shoving another spoonful into his already-full mouth.

"Isn't it like midnight over there?"

"Yeah. Oh. Well you see, I needed a bunch of milk cartons to sculpt Mr. Milkety-Milk here, so I bought a bunch of cartons, but then I needed to get rid of all the milk, but then there was no way I was gonna be able to drink all that before the expiration date so I'm basically eating cereal all the time now," said Spencer, still munching. Mr. Milkety-Milk was seen in the background – one fine sculpture that was, one of a big milk carton made out of many smaller milk cartons, with a cute face drawn onto it, too.

"So how much milk have you got left now?"

"Well I ended up buying too much cereal so I bought more milk…"

It was summer, 2018 – Carly in Italy, Sam at art school in LA, Freddie at uni in Boston, each of them getting on with their own lives. It had been a long time since any of the trio had seen each other – with all the distance and time difference, video chats and phone calls had faltered out between Carly and any of the other two, and as for Sam and Freddie, their busy lives had kept them from getting to see each other in person since the killer tuna incident years ago. Things had looked as if something was about to happen there… until Mrs. Benson came into the picture, which meant they never got the chance to get around to that dinner and 'fun' they were supposed to have. Those two still chatted regularly on splash face, but that was about it.

Spencer stayed in Seattle, and he years after the last webisode of iCarly did him good as an artist. And now, finally, he was getting to have his work displayed at a real museum. And this time, everything was arranged in the way things were supposed to be. No sneaking in, no Gibby distraction, no abrupt kissing, no messing around. In fact, it wasn't just one of his sculptures getting displayed – the whole exhibition was going to be his own, with his name in the title and all. Finally he would make his father and grandfather proud. (Well, it would be more of a "HAH! In your face! And you said I shouldn't have dropped out of law school" sort of moment than a warm, 'Son, I am so proud of you' sort, but you get the point.)

"Okay then, I gotta get going. Good night," said Carly.

Spencer said bye, ended the call, picked up his bowl of cereal and went to his bedroom. Wait – on second thought – he ran back to get the olive oil from the countertop – he lived on his own now, he could do whatever he wanted, walk around naked, have fun with the oil anywhere in the apartment, if you know what I mean…

—

While Spencer was getting ready to go to sleep, it was morning in Italy, and Carly was going out to see Alberto, her new boyfriend. It was going to be their third date now, and she thought he was nice. She sat at the café they were going to meet at, and as she waited for him, she decided to look up flights going to Seattle for Spencer's exhibition that weekend. She was so excited – it was the first time going back after she had moved to Italy, and she was looking forward to seeing everything that she missed so much. It wasn't that she wasn't having a good time in Italy, because she was, but there were still some things she missed.

"Buongiorno, Principessa!"

"Hey!"

It was Alberto, and Carly greeted him with a huge smile, but before he could casually kiss her, she gave him a big hug, laughing awkwardly. As much as she wanted to deny it, she was having a problem. He was really cute and nice and all, but she just wasn't… attracted to him. Lots of boys she met here were that way. She wanted a cute and nice boyfriend, and she met a bunch of boys who were really cute and nice, like Alberto was, but she could never find herself really attracted to any of them, so none of the 'relationships' she had had since she got here in Italy could ever last very long.

By the time Carly's awkward laughter was faltering out, Alberto broke the awkward silence:

"…So, I wasn't meaning to pry but you're looking up plane tickets?"

"Oh, yeah. It's just gonna be a short trip. My brother's an artist, and he's having this big exhibition and he wants me to come."

"Excited about going back home?"

"Yeah. It's the first time since I moved here, and there's just so much to look forward to, you know? I think I'll visit my old school too, and there was this smoothie place that me and my friends always went to…"

Carly's eyes lit up as she started talking about all the things she missed, and she couldn't stop talking once she started.

"…And even this hideous doorman we used to hate, I think I kinda miss– oh, I'm so sorry. You probably have no idea what I'm talking about now. I got carried away."

"I'm happy to see that you're so happy." Alberto smiled. He was so cute when he did that. And he was really sweet. They had stopped talking, and their faces were slowly moving closer and closer…

"Aw, you're so sweet!" Carly exclaimed in his face, probably a little too much in his face, pinching his cheek and shaking it, probably a little too hard. "Why, why, why?! Why am I not attracted to this cute boy?" she thought to herself. Alberto was still cute, still smiling at her, rubbing his cheek. She smiled back, ruffled his hair again, and forced out a laugh.


	2. Chapter 2

Birds chirping, sun shining. This was going to be a good day. Carly was determined to make this a good day. She had another date with Alberto scheduled, and she was determined, this time, she wouldn't flinch when he leaned in to kiss her. She even rehearsed it over and over again in her head – they would go for a movie, share a bucket of popcorn, then their hands would touch, then they would look at each other, then they would lean, everything would be so romantic and perfect, and she was not going to let anything ruin it.

After showering, getting dressed, blow drying her hair, putting on makeup, and all the usual morning routine Carly left the house, only to have to slam the door and run back in again. She couldn't believe what she saw – she pinched her arm, thinking it must have been a dream, but it wasn't. She ran to the windows, and there were reporters surrounding the house there, too.

There were hundreds of reporters waiting outside, shoving and shouting over each other. Carly couldn't even understand what they were trying to ask, but one thing was for sure: this day wasn't going to work out as she had planned.

Just as she was about to call Alberto to explain to him she couldn't leave the house, her phone rang. It was him.

"Hey," Carly started apologetically, "I was just about to call…"

"Carly, I am so, so, so sorry."

"What?"

What was he talking about? Did he know something about what was happening here?

"Are you trapped in with crazy reporters surrounding your house?" he said, hesitantly.

"…Yes, how do you know that?" she replied, confused.

"Well, that… might… be… my… fault," he said, with great difficulty. A short pause followed.

"What?"

"I, uh, might have unintentionally, uh…"

"WHAT?"

"…started this rumour…?"

"WHAT?"

"Listen! So I was at home with my little sister…"

Carly took a seat and listened, trying to calm herself while reporters were still out there, banging onto the door and walls. The harder she tried to shut them out, the louder they seemed to grow. If only Dad was here instead of on a submarine somewhere off the coast of… wherever it was, but then again, even he might not have been enough to drive away this enormous crowd. She tried to concentrate on what Alberto had to say to her.

He had casually mentioned at dinner that he was free that weekend, because Carly was going to Seattle and he wasn't going to go out with her then. His sister had seen iCarly before, but what he hadn't known was that she was a far more devoted fan than she had ever let him know. He had always thought of her as a pathetic wannabe novelist, but she did occasionally write for junky tabloids when she needed the money, and another thing he didn't know about his little sister was that she was a famous author online, in the iCarly fanfic community. Before he knew it, she had drafted a whole story about how iCarly was going to come together for a reunion webcast, and had spread it as if it were true to all sorts of news sites. When her phone started ringing madly this morning, he knew something was up, and she soon enough confessed to her crimes. Being the online sensation it had been, despite all the years that had passed, people all around the world apparently still really wanted iCarly to be back.

"Hey! I know you're in there!"

"When is your special reunion going to be?"

"What happened with Freddie and Sam?"

It didn't seem like they were going to go anywhere until Carly appeared, and she was getting scared now.

"Okay, Alberto, so what do I do?"

"Uh… I guess the easiest thing would be to just tell them what they want to hear."

"What?"

"I'm sorry, I gotta go!"

And then he hung up. Carly only stared at her phone in disbelief, but soon decided that she had to get out there and do something, or else the mad crowd won't ever leave and she didn't want to stir up trouble in the neighbourhood, if they weren't already annoyed by all the noise that was being made. She inhaled deep, then opened the door.

–

Meanwhile, a few days ago, back in America, a short video on SplashFace had caught Freddie and Sam's attention, and they were talking about it on video-chat. It was a fake trailer of an iCarly reunion movie, and this person had made it seem super realistic, using footage from past shows. Looking at the comments, it seemed as though lots of people wanted iCarly to be back.

"I wonder who would do this. I mean, it looks like they've put in a lot of effort into making this," said Freddie.

"Yeah, I'm watching it right now, and if I hadn't known better, I might have actually fallen for…" Sam stopped mid-sentence. There was an awkward pause – the video included footage from back when they had kissed live on iCarly at the mental hospital, and Freddie pretended not to hear the sound of their voices coming through the video call, attempting to change the subject.

"Hey, do you think maybe…" he started. Sam waited for him to finish, but he wouldn't.

"What?"

"Nah, it's stupid."

"Say it!"

"Well, I was thinking maybe…"

"…that we should do it?"

Then there was a pause, as both of them gazed at each other on their respective screens in silence. They thought about the idea of actually having a reunion, seeing each other and doing all the fun stuff they used to do together again. On one had, just the idea made them all excited, but then again, they couldn't be sure if they would click as they had years ago. What if they did come together and the show just wasn't as good anymore? What if they did do a reunion episode, only to disappoint everyone?

"…Well, should we?" said Freddie. And with this, all worries were forgotten. They wanted this, and they were going to make this work.

–

"Everyone… just listen… no, wait, SHUT UP!"

Carly stood in front of the front door, with a huge audience of eager reporters, all their eyes and camera lenses focused on her. Just a moment ago, she had been so sure that she would tell them the truth, that what they had heard was nothing but a rumor. But looking at everyone so excited and obviously wanting this reunion to happen, she couldn't bring herself to crush their hopes – she was, after all, touched that after all these years, there were still fans out their who remembered and still loved iCarly. So she started to speak, carefully:

"I know that you're all here because you think that there will be an iCarly reunion, and it's amazing how all of you seem so excited about it, after all these years."

The crowd burst into applause, and camera flashes went off from all directions. Carly tried to continue, but her voice was getting drowned out by the loud cheering. She yanked a megaphone from one of them and went on:

"But iCarly was all about kids being kids, and we've got to face the fact that… we're not 15 year olds anymore. Gibby doesn't like to take off his shirt so much, Freddie and Sam won't fight as much, and things like wedgie bounces and meatball fights won't be as much fun."

The crowd grew quiet, and Carly continued:

"I love iCarly more than anyone else, and it means a lot to me. But I want it to be remembered as what it was, us kids doing hilarious stuff that we could do only because we were celebrating being young and fun and, and… being kids."

Everyone still had their eyes locked on Carly, but they had long stopped shouting, and anyone carrying cameras had brought them down from their eyes. Carly wasn't even shouting anymore in order to get herself heard.

"…So it's not gonna happen. I'm just going to Seattle to see my brother's exhibition. And I think you should leave now."

–

"Okay then!" said Sam.

"Great!" said Freddie.

They were going to come together for iCarly again. People wanted it, they wanted it, so they were going to make it happen. They had no idea how, or where to begin, but at least they had taken the first step, sort of.

"So, if you contact Carly…"

"I guess you could call Carly…"

They started speaking, then stopped at the same time. They stared at each other, on their computer screens, each of them equally confused.

"Wait, why would you expect me to call? Don't you call each other regularly anyway?" said Freddie.

"Well, no, I thought you would have kept it touch with her," said Sam.

That was weird.

"O…kay then, I'll just find her on SplashFace or something." Knowing the girly girl Carly was, who loved her pretty pictures, and with his tech skills, Freddie knew she would be easy to find on social media. He had assumed that she and Sam would have been video-chatting almost everyday, if not more than once a day, though, and he was a bit weirded out to find out that hadn't been the case, but it was no big deal, he guessed. It had been a long time since he had last talked to her, but surely she was going to be psyched about the idea of a reunion.

When Carly first left for Italy Sam had thought the two would still be best friends video-calling each other all the time, but the distance and time difference had eventually caused the video-chats and calls to grow less and less frequent, until they faltered out and stopped altogether. It was strange knowing Freddie wasn't in contact with her either, because video-chatting with Freddie like this while lying on her bed in her pajamas felt like the most normal thing in the world. She hadn't realized until now how she and Carly had gradually moved apart. It was a saddening thought, but she tried not to show it. Besides, all that distance would be closed right away when they saw each other in person, it would be as if they had last been together yesterday and not six years ago.

"Okay. Tell me what she says," she said. The call ended, but both Freddie and Sam stayed there for a while, staring into their empty screens, thinking.


	3. Chapter 3

In a dark, small, window-less room, a blue monitor stood in place of a window, shining in a square of cold light into the darkness. All around that monitor, on the desk and below in on the floor, were emptied plastic bowls piled on top of each other, each stained with red spaghetti sauce. On the monitor, the iCarly movie trailer was playing. In front of the old computer sat a big, middle-aged man, wearing his tattered blue plaid shirt, slurping and munching from yet another bowl of spaghetti. He paused the video at the kiss scene, and set his bowl down. He raised his two arms and shouted.

"Seddie!"

–

Freddie sat in his bed, staring at his phone. He was on SplashFace, on chat with Carly. She had been, as he had expected, easy to find – she was one of those people who just had to upload every moment of her life on there, her pretty meals, her pretty boyfriends, her pretty face. In fact, he had already sent her the message, and he was now just waiting for her reply. And staring at the chat screen with nothing happening for a while now, his attention drifted. Before he knew it, he was going through her uploads from months and years ago.

Then he drifted onto the recommended friends, some of them being familiar faces, his old friends from school. It was fun finding out where everyone had ended up after all these years, and then, he ended up on Sam's page.

They were already friends, and her uploads came up on his feed, but it was something different going through a timeline of only her posts. The series of her past profile pictures was showing how she had grown and changed, in reverse, and he couldn't help but laugh at the things she wrote on there. There was a phase, he remembered, when she would write everything in crazy codes, thinking the cops were after her, and then there were all these inside jokes she had with her new friends that he didn't understand but smiled at anyway.

Like that, he was scrolling away… and then the worst disaster possible happened. He double-tapped.

–

Despite him panicking, unliking the picture as fast as he could, hoping so hard that would have undone the damage, the notification was sent, and Sam saw it.

"Freddie Benson liked your post from 3 years ago."

"…Huh?"

–

Freddie threw his phone to the side, then just as he was about to scream into his pillow, he heard his phone buzz. It was Carly. He hadn't really expected her to call, but there she was.

"Hey, you know, you could have just messaged. Isn't this international call thing gonna cost–"

"Yes, I know, no time to waste."

For some reason, it was really noisy there, wherever Carly was. Lots of shouting.

"Yes, that would be great, I'm coming to Seattle this weekend anyway, see you then!"

"Wait, what's going on–"

Then she hung up.

–

Back in Italy, Carly had made this dramatic exit, telling everyone to leave and walking back inside, but the shouting only grew back just as loud as before, if not even louder as soon as she closed the door. The people didn't just want answers – they had a specific answer in mind, and they wouldn't leave unless she gave them precisely that. She pondered on calling Alberto, then Dad, but soon decided against both. She sighed and slumped down, sitting with her back against the door. She wasn't sure if she had been right in saying what she had said. But then again, even if she wanted it to happen, she knew it could never be possible, not without Sam and Freddie. The show might have been called iCarly, but it wouldn't be complete if any one of the trio were missing. And she knew Sam and Freddie had each gone on to have their own successful lives, moving on, and that they didn't need this, and time and distance had driven the trio apart. It would simply be impossible to arrange a reunion webcast, even if she could bring up the courage to reach out and ask them. Or so she thought.

Because when she decided to check her phone, she found that there had been a message request on her SplashFace messenger app, from a familiar name. Freddie Benson.

As she checked what the message was, the reporters out there were still yelling at her as loud as ever – or perhaps, starting fade out – but she didn't care, it didn't matter so much anymore. The message was exactly what she imagined, what she had wanted it to be. She immediately pressed call.

"Hey, you know, you could have just messaged. Isn't this international call thing gonna cost–"

"Yes, I know, no time to waste."

 _People seem to really want this to happen, an iCarly reunion. Tell me what you think._

"Yes, that would be great, I'm coming to Seattle this weekend anyway, see you then!"

"Wait, what's going on–"

She hung up, then stepped back out, smiling triumphantly. She announced:

"Forget what I said, iCarly's back on!"

But unlike what she had expected, there was no cheering, no questions, no nothing. They had all left.

–

"I see it. It's genius. The moving head represents how the media's attention is short-lived, in this age of overflowing information, things get swallowed up and forgotten, the digital era tragedy. And to have paper, representing tradition and the olden times, as the medium to deliver this message. Genius. Spencer, your art is nothing like what I've ever seen before," said the museum curator, visiting the apartment, commenting on one of his sculptures, the Cereal Eating Moving Paper Head. It had cereal bowls stuck onto mini table-like surfaces stuck onto various parts of the body, in all directions, and spoons stuck onto each hand, and Spencer had made it move so that it turned to eat cereal from a different bowl every two seconds. There were two big bags of froot loops left to go – Spencer glanced back at the kitchen while the curator still stood there, admiring the sculpture.

"What I actually had in mind was… well, not much, and yours sounds much better, so yeah. Whatever you say. Cereal?"

He casually walked over to the kitchen to get himself another bowl. The apartment was full of so many of his creations, it was getting hard to walk around and get to places. The last two months, he had been the most productive he had ever been in his whole life, and as much as he was excited about getting to have his own exhibition, a part of him was also relieved that all this would be over soon. He had worked so hard, he was sure everything was going be perfect.

"Spencer, could you tell me about the mechanisms you have used to create the moving parts of this masterpiece?" the weird curator lady asked.

"You see, I used little motors on the joints, and connected that to a circuit," Spencer started off, his attention still on the cereal, but then when he turned to look back at the sculpture, he was forced to stop and scream.

"Oh, and it catches fire, to represent just how destructive and powerful this generation's short-spanned attention on important matters can be. Good work, Spencer. Genius, genius." Then she walked out, muttering to herself and clapping dramatically slowly.

"Whatever you say!" Spencer shouted, after she disappeared out the door. Just as he was about to pour his bowl of cereal in milk onto the Cereal Eating Moving Paper Head to put the fire out, the doorbell rang again. He checked the peephole, and it wasn't the weird curator lady. He quickly ran back, poured the milk onto the fire, and opened the door.

"That will be $13," the man said, shoving into Spencer's arms a pizza box.

"But I didn't order…"

"13 dollars."

"Look, I didn't…

"I don't have time for this, give me my money!"

"Okay!"

Jeez, that delivery dude had anger issues. Spencer gave him the money and he stormed out. The pizza box sure said, "Spencer Shay will pay for it" on top, so who could have possibly ordered–

"Mama's h–gimme that."

Sam, of course. She snatched the pizza from Spencer and crashed onto the couch, biting into her first slice.


	4. Chapter 4

"Hey I've been expecting you, oh wait, I haven't, you're not my sister," said Spencer. Sam was long busy with her pizza, having made herself comfortable on the couch like it hadn't been six years since she was last there.

"Yeah, yeah," said Sam. "Where's Benson?" Her eyes will still focused on the TV that she had just turned on.

"Uh… Mrs. Benson is at therapy but if you're talking about Freddie, maybe I did make a working time machine after all!"

Ignoring Spencer's remark, Sam stuffed her face with more pizza and went across to the kitchen.

"He said he'd be here today too. We're doing a reunion, haven't you heard?" she said, opening the fridge like it was the most natural thing in the world to do.

Spencer was still confused about what was going on, but he was starting to understand this was actually happening. He wasn't dreaming, nor had he transported himself back in time. His mind travelled back to that viral video he had seen a few days ago.

"Oh, so the movie trailer thing was real? But I thought…"

"No, don't be stupid. Warner Brothers ain't making us into a movie. But," Sam said, happy with the ham she had found in the fridge. "we are doing a reunion webcast. We're gonna show your exhibition on it, too."

"Really? 'Cause I thought Carly said…" Spencer was saying, as he reached for a slice of the pizza, only to be cut off:

"DON'T touch it… unless you are ready to face the wrath of a hungry Sam Puckett."

Ever since the fake trailer video went viral, and ever since Freddie and Sam saw it and talked about it, it had gone really viral, and people just couldn't stop talking about it everywhere Freddie went. He and Sam had agreed it might be better if they kept it as a surprise, so he would just tell them it wasn't real, but what troubled him more was all the news and rumors he was seeing online about them. All these fake news… Most of the comments were ridiculing the articles for saying ridiculous things anyway. One article claimed that the movie had been in production with a ridiculously high budget and was planned to premiere in theaters in three weeks, and another claimed that a movie had indeed been in production, but it had failed due to financial issues. Another article claimed that the alleged production had been stopped due to one of the stars getting severely injured in a car accident. He was going to look past it like all the other articles, until he saw another article that was saying basically saying the same thing. And another one. This accident chiz might have actually happened.

"You know," Sam said, eating from the last bag of cereal. It was 11am, and she had just woken up. She had slept in Carly's room, and for some reason, Spencer had huge bags of cereal lying around in the kitchen, so she decided to have that for breakfast, watching TV in the living room. Spencer was there too, sat next to her, munching cereal.

"I used to have a crush on you," said Sam. Then there was silence, except for the sound of the two munching on cereal, their eyes remaining fixed on the TV. Spencer stopped shoving more cereal into his mouth, and looked like he was just thinking hard. The pause was getting a little too long. Memories rushed past inside Sam's head. All those times she had said it to him, like when he had gone crazy with his pranks and had put up a transparent wall in front of the elevator, and when they went to that fat cake factory. Admitting she had a crush on someone, she thought, would make her seem weak, so she was never good at saying it out loud, but throughout her childhood, if Freddie had Carly, she had Spencer, she thought. He was fun, and even though he didn't act like it, he was older, and sure, Gibby could never get rid of the idea that he was Carly's dad but he wasn't that old, just old enough to make him different from all the other boys, and the perfect fantasy. And he was around all the time. _And_ he clearly really cared about her, cared about all of them, but she was a teenage girl with a crush on her friend's older brother, obviously she wasn't thinking straight.

"I know," said Spencer. "My spit tastes all fruity." Then he ate another spoonful of the cereal. "And this doesn't taste like anything," he whined, slammed his bowl down onto the table and started walking away towards his room.

"Wait, you can't just walk away from this!" said Sam. Damn it, she had poured in milk into the entire bag and now all she could think about was Spencer's fruity spit.

"Oh yeah? Watch me!" Like that, Spencer ran into his room, and Sam rushed after him. Somehow, Sam seemed to have lost him for a second, then discovering the jammed door to a storage door, started yelling at the closed door, thinking Spencer must have locked himself up in there. Spencer ran back out, and just as he was catching his breath again, another voice entered yelling his name.

"Spencer!"

He instinctively grasped at the pizza box from the day before, that was lying on the countertop, and held it like a shield.

"Spencer! Sam's hurt!"

It was Freddie. Spencer still held onto his suspicious look, but before he could say anything Freddie grabbed onto his pizza box shield and threw it on the floor.

"I'm not kidding! Sam's hurt!"

"Uh, no she's not. She's–"

"I just saw all these articles, she got into an accident with a sauce truck, and she's hurt!"

"A sauce truck?"

"Yeah, a truck that carries bottles of different sauces. Ketchup, tabasco, soy sauce… that's not important! Sam's–"

Spencer, who was once again very confused, tried to explain that Sam was fine, but that was no longer necessary. A loud crash was heard, followed by Sam's voice, angrily searching for Spencer.

"Wait, is that…?" Freddie started, and when he turned towards where the sound was coming from, Sam was standing there, her face flushed and breathing heavily. Seeing Freddie, Sam caught her breath and said hesitantly to Spencer:

"You might… find that your storage door's been knocked down."

"I know," Spencer said.

Then Sam turned to Freddie:

"I know I've been just chasing him around, why are you so worked up?"

"I was worried about you. Do you even read what they're saying on the internet? Look, Sam Puckett, known as cohost of iCarly, run over by a sauce truck! I thought–" Freddie began, annoyed how oblivious Sam was to the whole situation, and his voice was rising until he was stopped by another noisy entrance at the door.

"Freddie!"

It was his mom. She immediately hugged him and ran over all his body to check all his body parts were safely in place, and as he desperately tried to wriggle out of it, Sam stood watching everything that was happening to him, and her lips moved into a small smile – an expression that didn't go unnoticed by Spencer.

"Alright, I think it's best that you leave now," Spencer said, pushing the Bensons into their apartment across the hall. Freddie's mother kept going on about ticks and allergies that she imagined that her son had, and with that sound faintly in the background, Spencer shut the door, leaned on it, crossed his arms and looked at Sam.

"Sam, I've always known about this little cr–"

"Just forget about it, okay?" Like that, Sam snapped at him and started walking towards the fridge, but Spencer didn't let her drop the conversation like she said. It seemed like he was the only one here who knew what was really going on, and he needed her to realize it. He followed her into the kitchen and continued to talk.

"I've always known you've had this little _crush_ on me, but what I've also always known is that you've never really been in love with me. And I think you know that too."

Sam, with her head stuck in the fridge, stopped chewing whatever she had been chewing and listened. "Keep talking," she said, and resumed eating, whatever that was inside the fridge.

"Lots of kids go through this. I was older, and more mature, different from any of the boys you would see at school. You were just in love with the idea of being in love with an adult."

"Yeah, right, mature and grown-up, that's what people think of Spencer," thought Sam. He couldn't possibly be serious.

"Okay, maybe not exactly that," he said, as if he had read her mind right there, and continued. "But still, you get what I mean. Like you said, I, to you, was just like what Carly was to Freddie. I don't think he ever actually loved Carly; that little kid only ever wanted _a_ Carly."

A moment of silence, then Sam slowly removed her head from the fridge and looked at Spencer.

"And then what happened?" Sam asked, her voice suddenly gone very quiet.

"And then he grew up. He's not that little kid anymore," Spencer answered, just as quietly as she had spoken.

After another long pause, to both of their relief, Spencer brought up something else to talk about:

"Hey, Freddie was just talking about a truck accident…?"

And Sam, glad that the other conversation was now over, replied:

"Oh, that. A sauce truck crashed in front of me, so I picked up a few bottles of hot sauce. Why do you think I ordered pizza here?"


End file.
